|
K I O S K
B O O K S K E L L A R
C H A I N T H I N K E R
S I T U A T I O N I S T
B R A C K E N ' S O W N
Guy Debord: Revolutionary
A Few Extra Remarks on GDR
Extraphile
Other Writings
Reviews
Letters
M O R E B R A C K E N N O I S E
Persona non grata |
16. l e n b r a c k e n
Bill. In Louis Janover's Nuit et brouillard du
révisionnisme, the fellow travellers of the Guillaume's Old
Mole bookshop, now allegedly a center of revisionism and
negationism, are dismissed as "sulfurous" and worse. I
write a little about this in Liquid Zinc, a journal of my
May, 1997 trip to Paris, but not much because I'm too far
removed from this gossip to get bogged down in it. I look
forward to Brown's full report on the topic, so long as it
doesn't amplify the importance of someone so discredited as
Guillaume.
-
The publication of Guy Debord's photographic Panegyrique
II (which Brown conceded, probably wouldn't be very relevant
to biographers), hasn't made my "Debord for Beginners" book
obsolete, any more than the English translation of the
Jappe's Guy Debord. I recommend Jappe's book, which I found
instructive on several points, such as Debord's almost
Platonic sense of truth. But he's unfortunate to have
Donald Nicholson-Smith (a "pseudo-pederast" according to
Debord) as his translator - see my "Turning Gold into Lead"
for a critique of Nicholson-Smith's atrocious translations
of Society of the Spectacle and Revolution of Daily Life.
Incidentally, Nicholson-Smith and Jappe have responded to
my letters and gifts with the counter-revolutionary
response of non-communication. Nor do they show any signs
that I am aware of, of wanting to participate in bringing
situationistic activity into the next millennium. In any
case, I attempted to provide more world history,
intellectual history and history of the SI in my narrative
than previous books on the subject because I didn't take
for granted knowledge of the origins of the topics under
discussion. This approach, I believe, gives my book a
fullness and comprehensibility that is unsurpassed in the
literature on Debord and the SI. I'll leave it to others to
decide if my exposition of historical facts and analysis of
the fundamental concepts is more illuminating than Jappe's
academic analysis of esoteric points of philosophy. That
said, I'm well aware that my book isn't the "definitive"
take on Debord. When a more useful book on the topic comes
along, trust me, I'll be the first to sing its praises.
MY FINAL REPLY to the charge of obsolesce is that Bill
Brown's Not Bored! web site apparently hasn't keep pace
with fundamental aspects of Marxist theory, dating back to
the XIXth Century and reappearing in a coherent and
consistent way in Debord. If I'm wrong, he should be able
to tell me where the "reversible connecting factor" has
been used as a weapon in a revolutionary struggle. The use
of empty phrases like the "reversible connecting factor"
makes it easier for the spectacle to suppress efforts to
build a new revolutionary force based on the SI legacy. I'm
not slavish to ready-made Marxist terminology, but I think
that Debord deserves to be discussed in his own terms, and
besides, why reinvent the wheel? Concepts must be given. . .
 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
16
15
16
17
Bracken At Large |
Situationists |
Bookskellar |
Scenewash Kiosk |
E-Mail
|
